Category: Horse

The Search Continues

Looking for Number Three

As mentioned in this post the original goal was always to expand the number of equines in our care, first with a pony, then with either a donkey or another mare. This other mare would serve two purposes, being a riding horse for me while we got Leeloo sound and to have a few foals that I would train and sell as they got older. That plan has never changed. We did, however, put it on hiatus for a while because Juniper and Leeloo had been getting along better and we were still coming up short in terms of barn building money and having a third horse would not only cost in terms of buying said horse, but also in terms of caring for said horse. I was still occasionally peaking at ads throughout fall but after our first snowstorm Nate came fully over to the “we need a barn and we need one now” side of things so I stopped even half-heartedly looking at horses and focused everything on finding a builder and saving up for the barn.

Then Leeloo had to go and die.

It was only a few weeks after when I found myself starting to look at horse ads again. Which made me feel weirdly bad because I didn’t think I should be ready to look for another horse again so soon and there I was, looking at horse ads and not crying (okay, the first chestnut mare with socks and a blaze triggered a bit of a meltdown), but then I realized I wasn’t looking for another Leeloo, I was looking for that third horse, the babymaker, that I had already been looking for and Leeloo’s death didn’t change that at all. I wasn’t buying a new “first horse” I was buying the “third horse” as planned, it’s just that the first horse isn’t here anymore. 

I was still searching on the downlow though, because I was still feeling oddly guilty about it and we are in fact building the barn and that is going to take literally every penny of our savings so where is the money for this mare coming from Sara?! Then Nate saw my screen one night and asked me pretty much word for word that last sentence “Building the barn is taking literally every penny of our savings and then some, so where is the money for this mare coming from Sara?!” Also not having to feed and care for two horses means saving money which we need to do because the barn is taking up all of our money. These are very good and valid points. But I need a horse in my life and I want Juniper back home. Also finding this mare is going to take time. I do not want a horse, I want the right horse. So just because I’m looking now doesn’t mean I’m buying anything now.

The goal as outlined in that first post is to have babies so I need a horse that is worth breeding. It is shocking to me how many people breed horses that have major faults, things that make them predisposed to injuries and shorter useful lifespans; why are people breeding horses like that? 

So far I’ve looked through hundreds of ads, messaged a lot of people, and met six horses in-person. I’ve liked three of them but am waiting to hear back from some more knowledgeable advisors to make sure I am making a rational decision and not an emotional decision, particularly regarding the mare who has very similar personality to Leeloo; however the delay has meant at least one of the maybes sold before I heard back and so I continue to search while I wait.

I know that right horse is out there.

Where do we go from here?

Life keeps on moving

It has been a week and a half since Leeloo died. Though I’m still sad and I miss her greatly I’m doing much better. Writing this post helped a lot. Like, a lot. Prior to writing it out, that last hour of her life would just randomly start replaying in my head and would just take me right down with it. After writing it, the unwanted replays stopped. It is like I had a giant gaping wound that was gushing blood everywhere and writing about it was like putting stitches in and a band aid on. The wound is still there, but it isn’t randomly gushing proverbial blood everywhere and it has started to heal. It still hurts if I metaphorically bump it. Like walking out the door and seeing her halter, or cleaning up the mudroom and finding all the feed containers labeled “Leeloo,” but its down to a far more manageable dull ache. I don’t like throwing out the word trauma/traumatized, but I think that last hour was traumatizing and writing it out was a huge step in healing it. If you have experienced some sort of deep loss or trauma, I would encourage you to try writing it out. Whether you type it out and share it with the world, write it on paper and burn it in a little private ceremony of letting go, or something in between, it can be very helpful. Even if it doesn’t help as much, all you’ve lost is a little bit of time, and chances are it will make a difference.

That last week of Leeloo’s life was also a big deal for another reason, which you may have seen in the post. We put our first payment down on the barn! At the time it felt like the cruelest twist of fate that we signed the paper and cut the first check for the barn the day before Leeloo was diagnosed with cancer. If felt like the universe was rubbing salt into an already awful wound. But now that some time has passed, I’ve decided that Leeloo was waiting around here to make sure that I was able to fulfill this lifelong dream. Ever since the economy went to shambles in 2020, we have been searching, and searching, and searching, for a builder who was actually interested in working with us to figure out how to reconcile my dream, with our budget, and this messed up economy. Had Leeloo died this winter I don’t think I would have had the strength to keep searching. There have been so many setbacks and obstacles in this journey that I think her loss would have been the one I couldn’t get past. But we did find our builder, and they are great, and they were able to work with us to figure out how we could get this barn built and actually be able to pay for it.

So thank you Leeloo for staying with me long enough to make sure I found our builder and that this barn will be built! 

Leeloo’s Last Weeks

that sucked

I never imagined I’d be writing this post, at least not for another decade at least, but here we are. I would also like to apologize for the inconsistent use of tense. Obviously all of this should be written in the past tense but I’m having a hard time talking about Leeloo in the past tense so I keep switching back to present tense without realizing it and reading and re-reading this for editing purpose is hard so you’ll just have to deal with this fairly rough edit. Maybe someday I will come back and fix this up, but for now this is the best I can do.

Sunday April 23

I noticed some lumps under Leeloo’s jaw while giving her a good grooming in preparation for our spring vaccination and wellness appointment.

Monday April 24

Spring wellness appointment. Juniper’s eye injury is healed and looks good. Overall both girls look good and healthy (healthy coat, healthy weight, bright eyed, lively, etc.) and get vaccinated. We discuss Leeloo’s continued reluctance to be touched on her barrel or back end and decide to treat for ulcers. The lumps under Leeloo’s jaw are swollen lymph nodes, lots of possible causes, no other symptoms of anything else so we opt to schedule a dental appointment to get a better look at what is going in her mouth. Dental appointment is scheduled for May 18.

Tuesday April 24

Leeloo is acting a little lethargic but it is also one of our first nice sunny days in a while, so I don’t think too much about extra napping in the sun.

Wednesday April 25

Leeloo doesn’t eat all of her breakfast (not normal!) and is definitely lethargic and not eating as much hay as normal. Also starts to salivate a lot, like, a lot.

Thursday April 26

Leeloo eats even less of her breakfast (really not normal!), is even more lethargic, having a hard time eating, and the amount of extra salivation has gone from odd to gross. Lymph nodes have gotten larger and warmer. Call the vet panicking a bit that if we don’t get an appointment soon I may be calling for an emergency colic visit over the weekend because she is just not eating enough.

Friday April 27

Vet was able to rearrange a couple of things and get out to see us. Lymph nodes are super swollen and warm and the amount of saliva she is producing is remarkable. Assumption going in is that there is probably a fracture somewhere in her mouth, however the dental exam is inconclusive. There are three odd things but none of them are “the problem” – foxtail lesion from that stupid hay that guy sold me (selling foxtail contaminated hay to someone with horses is terrible), older two-inch cut along her tongue but it is healing and no sign of infection, something is wrong with her farthest back tooth and she will not let the vet deal with it even after being sedated three times. No obvious sign of a fracture though.

Working theory at that point was that when Juniper kicked Leeloo in the fall she may have cracked that farthest back tooth. At the time she was kicked it was well contained in her jaw so she didn’t show any signs of anything, but as it was growing out it had room to start moving and that could be causing our symptoms. The only way to be really sure would be to bring Leeloo into the U of M’s equine hospital for a head CT Scan but since I am not made of money and don’t have a truck or trailer we went with option two which was to treat her with some antibiotics (fourteen giant pills twice a day for a week or two), some pain killers (bute), and to start a week of ulcer guard since all of that would make any ulcers she had worse.

Saturday April 29 – Monday May 1

We give Leeloo her medicines mixed in with her normal food and some coconut sugar to hide the taste along with some cut-up apples and alfalfa pellets because we really need her to take her medicine. Imagine trying to give your toddler medicine but she’s 1200 pounds and can get her head much higher than you can reach. She eats everything fine all three days and is mostly back to her normal self though her lymph nodes are still slightly swollen, but big improvement over Friday and the extra salivation is mostly gone.

Tuesday May 2

We try banana as the special treat to our regret. Turns out Leeloo hates banana, as do I, so I should not have been surprised. Leeloo only gets about half of her medicine that morning and that night after several failed attempts we have to syringe her meds into her mouth which doesn’t go well.

Wednesday May 3

Things do not go better. We try everything we have in the house to get her to eat her medicine before having to take a break so I can go have carpal tunnel surgery. We stopped at the store afterwards to try some new options and learn that Leeloo is no longer willing to eat any of the following: apples, cherries, pumpkin, maple syrup, molasses, brown sugar, coconut sugar, vanilla pudding, alfalfa pellets, cumin, rosemary, or oregano. Juniper of course was down with it all and got to finish the rejected banana and the cherries; Nate had the rest of the vanilla pudding with the extra bananas.

Thursday May 4

Several more failed attempts lead to having to syringe the medicine into her mouth again. However now I’m down my dominant hand so Nate had to hold her while I used my left hand to hold the syringe and my right palm to just push it in. This was not pleasant for anybody. We decide to try the one thing that helped last time Leeloo decided she wasn’t eating her medicine, HS-35. HS-35 is a horse vitamin and mineral supplement that Leeloo loved and would eat anything that was mixed with it. Of course, this supplement has lots of additives that aren’t healthy which is why it was so tasty and why I stopped feeding it. The HS-35 worked at first but after she got about half-way done with her meds she stopped again. Her lymph nodes were starting to get bigger and warmer again and the extra salivation was coming back.

Friday May 5

The HS-35 didn’t work at all and we had to resort to syringing the meds into her mouth again and it went as well as it did Thursday. We were at that point out of medicine because we had wasted two doses with the various failed concoctions over the week. After consulting with the vet we decide to give everyone a few days break since I had just had surgery and was also supposed to go to Wisconsin to visit some friends and we will decide on Monday if we want to try a different antibiotic or do the head CT scan. At this point her appetite for hay was relatively intact and she was still drinking fine. Though the overall amount of poop in the pasture seemed to be less than it should be. The biggest issue with food was that Leeloo was unwilling to eat anything “special” that we were trying to give her. The weird extra salivating was getting worse but not as bad as the previous Friday and same with her lymph nodes, getting worse again but still not as bad.

That night I sent a follow-up emailing asking if we needed to be worried about cancer since we have this weird lymph node thing going on and the vet said that considering she’s only 14 it would be highly unlikely and that we should go with the rule they tell their vet students, “when you hear hoof beats, look for horses, not zebras.”

Saturday May 6 – Sunday May 7

Leeloo is starting to eat more of her medicine-free breakfast and we were able to get her to eat grass from our hands (hard to hide a pill in grass). Her overall demeanor however was trending towards the lethargic end again and she wasn’t eating as much hay as she should be.

Monday May 8

Leeloo ate more of her breakfast which is good, but she is getting even more lethargic and the amount of poop in the field is definitely less than it should be. Some of the piles we do have look odd (small amount and mucus-y) which the vet says is a sign that not enough food is going through the system so what is there is taking longer to make it through. We decide to try injectable antibiotics to see if that gets us better results and then I just have to try to get the pain meds into her. We make an appointment for Tuesday to do the first dose of the new antibiotic.

As Monday goes by I notice that Leeloo is developing neurologic symptoms; mostly crossing over her back legs when she walks. She is also starting to have discharge from her nose, lymph nodes are getting more swollen, and she actually let Juniper steal some of her food right out of her food tub as she was eating which is unheard of. I cannot emphasize how abnormal that was. We also saw Juniper playing with the treat toy and Leeloo didn’t care; this goes beyond unheard of into blasphemy, treat toy is life.

Tuesday May 9

Check in with vet to see if we can adjust our appointment today to be a bit longer since Leeloos is even more lethargic, not eating her breakfast, increased nasal discharge, breathing is starting to be labored, and neurologic symptoms are worse; she is uncoordinated and stumbled getting into and out of the stall for breakfast. Vets come out and do a series of tests. She has a fever of 104° F (normal horse temperature is about 100°F give or take a degree), her neurologic symptoms are present but it is unclear if they are just a side effect of the fever and her overall feeling really crappy from whatever is causing said fever or if they are their own symptoms. An in-the-field infection test shows that she is indeed fighting some sort of infection, but the test can only tell if there is a bacterial infection at work and if it is severe, it doesn’t tell you which one. I don’t have any frame of reference for the score but the level Leeloo’s test came back with made both the vets on site swear and the vet they were consulting with on the phone said “holy shit” when they told her the number. At this point the thought is that there is more than one thing at play, possibly whatever is happening in her mouth which is making it hard for her to eat plus some infection, there is a tick-borne disease which can cause fever and neurologic symptoms that is the number one suspect, it would be easy to treat so we are all hoping it is that. They take a ton of blood for further testing as well as some nasal swabs and give her a dose of banamine to get the fever down until we know what we’re dealing with and can get a treatment plan in place.

After the vet leaves we have an appointment with a builder to finalize the contract to start the barn and write the first check to pay for materials, plan is to break ground June 1.

Tuesday night I give her another dose of banamine and offer her more food which she eats some of but not much. We also get some initial results and they lead to more questions and no answers. Leeloo was anemic and had some abnormal white blood cells on her CBC. Her platelets were also low, but the pathologist will help us understand if that is a real finding because sometimes platelets clump during transportation. The chemistry panel also shows many of Leeloo’s electrolytes are low as well as the protein albumin. This is common in diarrhea cases but we haven’t seen any evidence of diarrhea and didn’t match with the healthy gut sounds the vet heard.

Wednesday May 10

Leeloo is even more lethargic than she was on Tuesday and less willing or able to move. Nate and I decide to just feed her out in the field instead of making her walk into her stall. She tries to eat but seems to be having a harder time, half the food that makes it into her mouth falls back out and she gives up before finishing it. The amount of poop seems slightly better and less mucusy but still not what it should be. Fever is still present and her breathing is more labored than the day before. She still seems interested in eating hay but is having a hard time actually eating it. Neurologic symptoms are changing, not crossing over any more but her movements are stilted and she’s holding her head very oddly when she tries to walk.

Keep checking email and phone for update from the vet.

Wednesday afternoon Leeloo still has a fever so we try sponging her off to see if that helps and I see I have an email from the vet asking me to let her know when I’m available to talk. I tell Nate I have a bad feeling. We’ve emailed about everything else but this is something that isn’t fit for an email but it wasn’t an emergency because she didn’t immediately call me. I email back that I’m available all day and shortly after get a call from the vet.

It’s a zebra. 

Leeloo has an incredibly rare form of cancer which is virtually unheard of in horses, some sort of leukemia or lymphoma, at this point the cancer is all throughout her lymph system and in her bone marrow. My vet had combed through every paper she could and only found two ever written regarding this type of cancer in equines and between both papers there were only 18 documented horses. We are now in uncharted waters, and not the good kind with adventure and treasure, but the kind with hidden shoals and terrible currents that sink your ship and kill everyone. There aren’t any documented treatment options or even palliative care options. At this point all we can do is try our best to keep her as comfortable as we can until it is time to say goodbye. We are both hoping we can get Leeloo through the weekend and give me time to wrap my head around it and have a chance to spend some time with her as well as figure out what to do with Juniper, who cannot stay at our house by herself. This would also give the vet a chance to figure out if the University can take Leeloo afterwards to do a necropsy for research purposes since this is such a rare form of cancer for horses.

Our strategy for palliative care is regular doses of banamine and a daily dose of a steroid. My neighbor is able to give IM (intermuscular) injections and is willing to come every day to give the shots as long as Leeloo stays with us. We give our third dose of banamine for the day and our first dose of steroid and hope they make a difference.

That night I go out to offer Leeloo more water and to make sure she has easy to reach hay and leave the water buckets by the shelter so she doesn’t have to walk as far. The steroid and the banamine don’t seem to be doing much because her breathing is still labored, she still feels fevered, and her overall demeanor is weak and lethargic.

Thursday May 11 – Leeloo’s birthday.

Leeloo is in even worse condition than the day before. It takes her two hours to walk from the shelter area up to the hayboxes and water area which is where Juniper was. She takes one single staggering shaky step and then pauses for about five minutes to catch her breath before taking the next. We offer her breakfast, but she doesn’t eat any. She is willing to eat some grass out of our hands and at this point is willing to eat apples and carrots and hay pellets from us again but that’s about all she will eat. She can’t seem to reach her head down into the water tank so we bring water to her. Her breathing is really labored.

I text the vet and tell her I don’t think Leeloo will make it to Friday and I think we need to say goodbye today. I find myself unable to say the words “put her down.” Vet makes some calls and says that she can get someone out today from her office but the truck to pick up Leeloo’s remains can’t make it until Friday so she would have to sit under a tarp in our yard all day. That is too much for me. The thought of killing her on her birthday and then letting her sit under a tarp in the hot sun all day only to be potentially eaten by the bears and coyotes that I know are in the park across the street are just too much for me and I can’t do it. I ask if giving her two doses of steroid might help her make it to tomorrow and she says that if one dose didn’t do much giving two in one day won’t either, but that giving her a double dose at one time might. The neighbor comes over again to give her the double dose and it does make her more able to move and increases her appetite a bit. Leeloo and Juniper make it back to the shelter area from the hay area in only 15 minutes and she is actually eating hay, however her breathing is still incredibly labored and now she is sweating profusely.

Thursday afternoon she is incredibly lethargic, uninterested in eating hay, very labored breathing, and when she does try to move is very shaky. I spend the afternoon sponging her down and brushing her.

This next part is upsetting, and I am going to go into detail so you may want to stop reading at the end of this paragraph and skip the next one. I have gone back and forth about whether I should write it or not but I decided I should because (a) I’m hoping it will help get the memories out of my head so I can please stop reliving them and (b) part of what made this all so terrible was that I had no frame of reference. I have never had a horse through the end of their life, they always moved on to their next earthly human family not into death and I have never seen anyone fight for their life and then die. My hope is that if you read this and then have to deal with your own loss of a loved one it will, if nothing else, offer at least a tiny bit of mental preparation. Or not. Death is part of the natural order of the world, but it can also really suck.

 

Warning this part is rough –

Thursday night around 9:30 PM I go out to check on Leeloo and offer her more water and hay pellets. She is laying down in one of the shelter bays and I can see from the marks in the dirt that she had been thrashing. The shine of my light seems to startle her and she tries to get up in a very panicky manner and can’t actually get up at first. She struggles a lot and eventually gets her butt into the corner of the shelter and uses that to get all the way up but she is standing with legs splayed and shaking and the look in her eye is panicky and unfocused and her breathing is incredibly labored. Once it seems like she isn’t going to collapse again I give her another dose of banamine and offer her more water and she drinks the whole bucket. I leave one of my lights in the shelter and go back up to get more water. When I get back she has managed to get herself into a different shelter bay that doesn’t have a light with her head facing into the corner and she seems slightly less panicked but is still quivering and unsteady. I text the vet that she isn’t going to make it to Friday and we need someone to come out tonight. Vet says she is on call and will be there as soon as she can but it will be a bit. I ask if giving her another dose of steroid would help her make it to the vets visit and she doesn’t think so but said it can’t hurt anything to try so I text the neighbor to see if she can come over. I’m pretty upset but also afraid to get close to Leeloo because she is so very unsteady and if she falls and flails she could easily hurt or even kill me if she got a hoof in the wrong spot in her thrashing. Neighbor comes and we give the second double dose of steroid that day. The first double dose in the morning seemed to kick in pretty fast (within 10-15 minutes) so we’re waiting to see what happens. Our neighbor heads back to her house to get everything ready to bring Juniper over once Leeloo is gone and to get some panels to help us protect Leeloo from any potential scavengers. Shortly after the neighbor leaves Leeloo turns around in the shelter bay which was the most terrible series of jerky and uncoordinated movements I have seen and she is shaking all over and her eyes once again look panicked and unfocused and she is struggling so hard to breathe. I am distraught and sobbing and telling her it’s okay and she can lay down, and please baby just lay down. Nate reminds me that Leeloo takes her cues off of me and that if I am upset and panicky it is not going to help her so I try to calm myself down and stop sobbing but just keep telling her that it is going to be okay and she should just lay down and its okay to stop fighting and if she has to go she can go and I’ll be okay, and please just lay down. She eventually stumbles out of the shelter bay and collapses on the ground which also makes Juniper panic a bit. Once Leeloo seems like she is still I approach her head slowly and stroke her ears and face and tell her its okay, she can go, and I’ll be okay. She managed to collapse right on the remains of the winter poop pile so Nate goes to get me a piece of cardboard to sit on and Juniper’s halter and lead rope. He holds Juniper while I kneel on the cardboard stroking Leeloo’s face and ear. Then the trashing begins. It started with her legs so I was able to get out of the way because then she just started thrashing so badly with her whole body I would have been seriously hurt had I not moved. I’m not sure if it was convulsing or seizing. I have been told that if she was struggling to breathe for that long the depleted oxygen levels in her brain could have triggered a seizure. All I know is that she just kept slamming her head into the ground over and over again and the sound was just awful and I couldn’t possibly get close enough to touch her and I felt like I was abandoning her when she needed me most. So we just stood there, Nate holding Juniper and me and I just tried to stay as calm as I could and talk to her as I listened to her slam her head into the ground again and again. Eventually the thrashing stopped and the sounds of labored breathing stopped.

 

You can come back now

I slowly approached her head and placed my hand by her nose, I felt a last small stirring of air but then that was it. I was still crouched by her head stroking her ear when the neighbor came back. She confirmed that she had stopped breathing and I texted the vet that it was too late and that Leeloo was gone.

The neighbors were very supportive, they helped us get her tail and cover her with some drop cloths and secure them. Then they took Juniper with them so she could have a sleepover with their ponies while I figured out what to do next, which for now was going into the house to cry a lot.

Friday May 12

Nothing disturbed Leeloo’s remains that night and the truck came to bring her to the U for the necropsy. He was able to get in to get her without us having to take down the fence and we were able to stay in the house and not watch.

 

And here we are, my baby girl is gone and my heart is broken. Not sure when we will get further results from the U, not that it matters for us, but I hope if nothing else it adds to the body of knowledge and the next horse and human who have to go through this have at least some clue of what to expect. My biggest regret is that I wasn’t strong enough to have the vet out to euthanize her earlier in the day before it got so bad. So that was my last lesson from Leeloo – when you know in your heart that it is time to say goodbye you need to do it. It doesn’t matter what day it is, it doesn’t matter what the weather is, it doesn’t matter if there is something that will make it harder for you. I should have had the vet out during the day on Thursday and didn’t and I will always regret that. But I know Leeloo has already forgiven me for this mistake, just like she forgave me for every other mistake I ever made. Horses are the most amazing animals and there is so much they can teach us and I don’t even have the words.

I will miss her forever but her lessons and her love will also live with me forever.

Goodbyes Suck

Fourteen Years is Not Enough

Last night I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends.

May 11, 2009 was one of the best days of my life because that was the day Leeloo, aka Larks Little Jet, aka Baby Girl, aka Honey Bear, aka Sweetheart, aka Leeloo Dallas Multi-pass Put That Down, came into the world. As with most amazing things it was equal parts terrifying, exhilarating, humbling, and awe inspiring. Seeing that tiny foal take her first steps and take her first drinks (first drinks eventually, there was some confusion on the correct location for said activity) and just meet the world was something I will never forget. I spent the whole night in the stall with Leeloo and her mom Annie and it still ranks as one of the best experiences of my life. I may have also called the after hours vet like six times with my various “new horse mom” questions until he eventually asked if I just wanted him to come out and take a look at her. Yes please. She of course was fine and I had a bouncy happy foal on my hands. 

Emphasis on the bouncy.

 

May 11, 2023 was one of the worst days of my life, maybe the worst, because I had to say goodbye to my happy bouncy baby girl. I will write another post going into what happened because my nosy ass would want to know, but for now we’ll leave it at the simple fact that Leeloo died at 10:30 PM on May 11 2003. She was 14 years and 1 hour old. And my heart is broken.

The last fourteen years with that horse have elicited every emotion a person could have. Frustration, excitement, disappointment, happiness, anger, joy, sadness, but more than anything love. I love that horse; I will always love that horse. She taught me so much; from the day she was born right to the day she died she had lessons to teach me. I am a better horse person and a better version of myself because of her.

When I was starting to look around for another mare to breed, Leeloo having had too many weird unexplained health issues making breeding her far too risky for her and any baby, I had two very knowledgeable and experienced horse people tell me that breeding was a sucker’s game and I should just go and buy myself a yearling. You never know what you’re going to get when you breed, so many things can go wrong with pregnancy and birth, and foals, like all babies, seem to be constantly getting themselves in trouble, there are always so many risks. But the thing is loving horses is a sucker’s game, loving any pet is a sucker’s game, hell loving anything at all is a sucker’s game, but it is worth playing. It is so worth playing. I would not trade one day I had with that horse for anything in the world, not even this last terrible birthday.

When Juniper came into our lives and was getting a lot of my attention because of her eye Leeloo started getting jealous and I told her then she was my first baby, she was my best baby, and she will be my baby always, which got shortened to first, best, and always. Every day I would say bye to both of them but would always give Leeloo an extra pat and whisper to her “first, best, and always.”  

First. Best. Always.

I miss you already.

Hay Lids – FINISHED!

finally

After months we finally, FINALLY, got all six haybox lids finished and installed. Considering I figured out the haybox lid solution back in December it begs the question why did it take more than three months to get them done?! This is a question I ask myself about almost everything almost all of the time. In this case there were a series of setbacks in addition to my normal procrastination and inability to complete tasks.

Getting the materials took longer than planned because our first big snowstorm of the season hit and interrupted the delivery of everything to everywhere including LeVahn Brothers (still the best hardware store ever!). By the time they got the materials and got them cut down to size for us it was solidly into the holiday season which meant I wasn’t able to get everything until after Christmas. After getting the materials they sat around our living room for several weeks casting judgement upon me before I was able to make myself assemble a few of them. This used up much of my “being useful” energy so more time went by before I went out to actually put them on the boxes to make sure everything was okay, at which point I discovered that somewhere along the line a mistake was made in the measurements. The corner pieces we use for the frame are not neat squares but stick out a bit on both sides, plus there is the corner itself which adds its size to the overall length of each side. I had measured the boxes in the field but didn’t think about the extra space needed for the corner pieces until I was standing in line at LeVahn brothers about to tell them what I needed. For some reason this oversight caused me to panic and instead of stepping out of the nonexistent line to do some calculations I freaked out and tried to quickly account for the corners in my head. The result was that one of the dimensions was fine, but the other was off by 2.75 inches for every single box. Luckily they were all too long by 2.75 inches which meant I could cut them down instead of having to buy the materials all over again. However, this also meant I needed to find our pipe cutter and motivating myself to go look for it took even more time. When I finally got around to looking for it the search proved fruitless which meant another trip to LeVahn brothers to buy a new one. I can’t possibly leave the house for only one reason if that reason is for adulting purposes and not say, getting ice cream because we have decided to cheat on our diet, so I had to wait on that until there was some other adulting reason to leave the house and that reason was also in the same direction as the hardware store. Once the pipe cutter was acquired more time went by before I finally tried it out only to realize that I suck at using the pipe cutter only slightly less than Nate does, so the actual cutting of the pipe took several days because I had to rest my useless hand (surgery in May!) in between each one. I now have all the pipe pieces cut to length and re-assemble the first three lid frames along with the hay nets. After the mishap with the frames I though I should go test again now that the hay nets are on and find that my first attempts at measuring and cutting the hay nets was pretty terrible and two of the three are too small and I need to cut new ones out of the second giant piece of hay net I had purchased. At last the lid frames are finished and the correct size, the hay nets have been cut to the correct size, and everything has been assembled; now to install them! We just need a nice day where it isn’t snowing or raining or sleeting or blowing at 50 mph to get them put on. Normally in spring this would be no big deal, but haven’t gotten to spring yet, we’re still stuck in the winter that refuses to leave. We also needed both of us to be available because even though the actual installation is a one person job, it isn’t a one person job when you have the equivalent of a 1500 lb toddler trying to help you with every step.

Most horses would have been scared off by the plastic bag that was holding some of the materials because plastic bags are terrifying for many a horse, those that made it past that would normally have taken off at the first sound of the drill, but not Leeloo. Leeloo hung out with us the entire time we installed all the lids. Nate took a few videos for evidence of Leeloo’s “helping” before he moved into his “keep Leeloo occupied” role so I could get them done with slightly less help.

Though there is always time for head scritches, no matter how many other things need to get done.

But finally – after all the setbacks – the lids are DONE!

Lazy Weekend

sometimes you’re productive, sometimes you’re not

The weather was gorgeous this weekend and we could have gotten so much done. But everyone seemed to agree that it was a good weekend for lazing about doing not much of anything. I finished the book Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway (really good book, I liked it a lot and got some great ideas and inspiration from it) and Nate and I both played a lot of bit of Horizon: Forbidden West (I am enjoying it just as much as the first game – which I LOVED) and Leeloo and Juniper spent most of the weekend napping in the sun.

We did get the “barn” shelter all cleared out so that we can feed the girls in there. Everyone is still getting used to the new routine and the efficiencies haven’t materialized quite yet; but I’m hopeful that within a week or so this change in our routine will make a difference. Today they both realized that they needed to be by the big gate and that the hay and treat toy were still back by the water and they had to travel to them. Of course today it is also stupid and rainy and I have most of their hay in the shelters, but they’ll figure that out. Hopefully.

Ice Capades

for the love of drainage

This week has not been super fun in terms of weather. We got a string of unseasonably warm days where it got above freezing leading to a great deal of melting. Of course It didn’t melt all of the snow, it just created a fun layer of ice on everything. This was followed by a day of rain and the only thing that can make ice worse is a layer of water on top of it and the the ground itself is still frozen so the water can’t really go anywhere. Combine that with the location of our shelters on the flattest ground we could get that unfortunately also happens to be near the lowest point on that side of our house. With the ground frozen and a wall of snow that had turned into ice all around the outside of the shelters this meant all that water ran into the shelters and then had no way to get out. The water was ankle deep in the two shelter bays that don’t have mats and was almost as deep in several areas of the bay with mats, though that one still had a few dry spots. In a fit of guilt at making the girls stand in that much water which I knew was going to shortly freeze and turn into an ice rink I opted to sacrifice two bales of our cheapest “forage” hay (one of which was actually kind of moldy so I wasn’t going to feed it to them anyway) to spread out and hopefully soak up some of the water and if nothing else provide traction once all that water froze.

Was it the best idea I ever had? No. Did it help? Maybe? I was not a good scientist and did not leave one shelter bay alone as a control to test my results. What I can say is that the next morning there wasn’t nearly as much water in any of the shelter bays which is a good thing. More importantly, when the flash freeze happened that day we wound up with lots of places that are sheer ice but the shelters with all their hay didn’t freeze solid and the footing in there is fine. Picking poop out of all that semi frozen hay has been awful however, so I’m hoping to find a better solution before we have to deal with this again.

I know the best solution would involve some decent drainage built into the footing of the shelter area, but they are in temporary locations (I will get my barn built!) and I didn’t want to waste money on putting in drainage materials that I would not be able to take back out and repurpose easily. So far everything that we have, from the fences to the shelters, can be moved to their permanent home once the barn is built. That being said, I will be trying to find a way to put some sort of drainage in the shelter area for now because I do not want to deal with this again.

This still leaves the ice rinks in front of the shelters, near one set of hay boxes, and near the water. The University of Minnesota Equine Program had a Facebook post about horse-safe ways to deal with ice and using poultry grit was one of the options. I had a customer come through my lane at Fleet Farm who said the same thing, so I bought a bag (and now two more) and I think it works pretty well. It worked amazingly for me and my boots; once I put a little bit down I have had zero issues with traction. It hasn’t been quite as amazing for Leeloo, Juniper, or Nate all of whom are still slipping here and there, but I think overall it is helping. And I don’t feel bad about spreading small pieces of granite on my lawn the way I would if I were spreading salt everywhere.

Hopefully we won’t have any more random rainstorms in the middle of winter to flash freeze into sheer ice. Snow I don’t mind so much, but ice sucks! (though still better than bugs!)

Managing Oral Issues with Clicker Training

Positive reinforcement for the win!

As I mentioned in this post our goal for the weekend was to help Juniper get over her issues with having oral medications or wormer administered. It went really well!

The original plan was to do six clicker training sessions total, three on Saturday, three on Sunday, and then either worm in the last session on Sunday or on Monday. We got it done in five sessions and probably could have done it in four but I didn’t want to push it. We made videos if anyone wants to watch the process but I’ll also outline it here for people who read faster than the videos play.

Session 1

Our goals for the first session were to reestablish the sound that means “yes, well done” and to get Juniper to accept me having my thumb just inside her mouth. This was by far the longest session and it took Juniper forever to relax and just let my thumb sit there.

One of the hardest things about clicker training for me is getting my timing right. You want to make your “yes, well done” sound the MOMENT they give you the behavior you were looking for or when things are clearly not going where you want them to if they even start to give you what you are looking for. That sounds easy, but in practice it can be pretty challenging. As with everything in life you get better with practice and I am very out of practice.

 

Session 2

Our goal for the second session was for Juniper to let me put an empty syringe/tube in her mouth in the same location where you would be placing the tube of medication or wormer. Same premise, start slow and in small steps: tube next to mouth, tube just barely in mouth, tube all the way in mouth. The moment she is calm and accepting at each stage I make the reward sound and then give the treats.

 

Session 3

Our goal for the third session was for Juniper to let me put a syringe/tube with applesauce into her mouth and then squirt applesauce into her mouth. This was also practice for me because I tend to suck at giving wormer. I can never seem to get my hand position correct; I finally get it in their mouth but then can’t deliver the medication because my hand forgets how to work. This was a low pressure way for me to practice administering an oral tube medication as well. Juniper got VERY suspicious once I changed my hand position on the syringe so we had to go back a few steps to just accepting the tube by her mouth, then accepting it just barely in her mouth, before going back to all the way in. Success is in the baby steps!

 

Session 4

Repeat of session 3 – really want to establish that having a tube of something squirted into your mouth isn’t that big of a deal and Juniper did really well this second time with the applesauce so it was a very short session. To be fair most people don’t want to have some unknown substance squirted into their mouth, so her general dislike of the process is not unreasonable.

 

Session 5

Goal is to worm Juniper with no rearing. I opted to dip the wormer tube in some molasses and that helped immensely. To the point that Juniper didn’t want me to take it back out of her mouth and bit on it to try to finish getting all of the molasses. She also kept coming back up to me after we were done hoping for more treats or molasses lollypops even though it had that funny aftertaste. I did do another round of applesauce after the wormer because I didn’t want to end on the bad taste of wormer, though based on how much Juniper wanted to keep going I probably could have.

 

Some additional notes for making sure clicker training sessions go well.

I try to do all of my handling with Leeloo or Juniper in designated horse-human spaces like the round pen. Once we have a barn that will also be a dedicated horse-human space. I try to leave their overall track system for them as their domain and to not do much of anything with them out there.

I only give treats when we are doing clicker training and then I always have the bright blue fanny pack on. This is a very clear signal to the girls that this is a clicker training session and treats will be involved but also that to get treats they must be polite and do something to earn the treat.

End the session with a big reward to help them realize the session is over but to also not feel too disappointed by it being over. This is one that I still need more work with because Juniper made it very clear that she still wanted to work together after I was done and I felt bad denying her the opportunity to learn and do more with me when she wanted to.

Positive reinforcement training is a very effective tool and this round of worming went SO much better than when I tried to give her oral banamine this fall, that attempt involved a lot of rearing which is not safe for anyone.

If you are interested in doing positive reinforcement training find some good learning materials to start with, here are some of my favorites:

Mustang Maddy

The Willing Equine

The Clicker Center

And remember that everything takes practice – we’re aiming for better, not perfect!

Holding Pattern

Where do the days go?

I had a lot of goals for the week and somehow the week came and the week went and those goals did not happen. Well, some of them got worked on, but nothing got finished.

Goal One – Regenerative Farming Research

As I said in this post I have been unhappy with my job for a while and being on sabbatical and working on the Adult Education Certificate has really brough home the fact that I need a new career. Regenerative farming has sparked a lot of hope and excitement in me, and I wanted to do more digging to figure out how I can make this happen. I did find several books I want to read but haven’t gotten much farther than putting holds on them at the library.

Goal Two – Carpel Tunnel Surgery

I wasn’t going to have it done this week, obviously, but I had hoped to get it scheduled. I did meet with the surgeon and he agrees that surgery makes sense as our next step. Now I’m playing phone tag with his scheduler. The surgeon said I should only need 3-4 weeks of down time (in terms of not doing horse chores) but(!) that I can’t actually damage anything if I over do it, it will just hurt until it is done healing. This is great for many reasons, but the biggest is that it takes the pressure off of Nate to do EVERYTHING for the month. Nate and I are hoping that I can get the surgery scheduled for the very beginning of May (what a wonderful birthday gift that will be). I find that I can ignore the issues with my hand/wrist now that I know a solution is on the horizon.

Goal Three – Finish Hay Box Lids

I was so excited when we got our hay box lid solution figured out, as discussed in this post. However actually finishing the lids hasn’t happened yet because I messed up my measurements a bit. When I took the measurements to LeVahn Brothers to get the rest of the pipe for the lid frames I forgot to account for the corner pieces until I was standing at the register in the store. Instead of reasonably stepping out of the non-existent line to take my time to figure it out, I panicked and tried to calculate it quickly in my head. I did it correctly for one direction on all of the boxes but I was off by 2.75 inches in the other direction on all the boxes. Luckily they are too long and not too short so I can just cut them all down, I just haven’t gotten around to doing that. We are getting very sick of playing the fun game where Leeloo and Juniper shove all the hay out of the boxes and we put most the hay back in the boxes. Thankfully it isn’t muddy (yet) and they eat a lot of the hay back off the ground so they aren’t wasting that much but it will be muddy soon and mud or not it is very annoying so I really have to get these lids finished.

Goal Four – Make Progress on the Barn

One of the builders I had reached out to got back to me with some questions this week and we had a good conversation about the building but he still has more to do before he can give me a quote. I also started up another round of phone tag with another builder who I had been in contact with in fall but didn’t get final answers from – hoping I connect with him soon.

Then there were two new things that came up this week. Or rather two very old things that I had completely forgotten about that came back up.

First – Lawns to Legumes Grant

We received a Lawns to Legumes grant!! I had completely forgotten that I applied until the email showed up in my inbox saying we had been awarded one of the grants but I am super excited (and actually happy with past Sara for once)! Now I need to figure out what kind of project will satisfy the grant requirements, will make sense with our long-term goals, and will work with our current short-term setup (i.e. our front yard is now mostly horse paddock). There is a webinar for grantees that happens in two weeks and I am going to hold off on any planning until after that – but I will be staying super excited!

Second – Juniper’s Oral Medication Issues

When we brought Leeloo and Juniper home this fall we wormed them both before putting them in the trailer. I asked Juniper’s previous owner to do it since I didn’t know Juniper at all and some horses don’t like being wormed. It did not go well. In the end it took three people way too long, and with way too much rearing, to get it done. At the time I chalked it up to nerves; owner was sad about letting Juniper go but also had a time crunch that morning and Leeloo was having a meltdown in the trailer so I wasn’t exactly radiating calm. However the vet also had issues just trying to do a dental exam and I was unable to get oral banamine into Juniper using the tube. I knew then that this was something we would have to work on but at the time I was also giving her multiple eye medications 4-6 times a day and I could not afford to miss a dose because I had a pony unwilling to be caught or handled because she was feeling salty after trying to work on her oral issues. Then after weeks and weeks of eye meds followed by the onset of winter I forgot about it; until now. Leeloo is showing signs that she may be dealing with some parasites (coat condition isn’t great and she’s trying to itch her tail on everything – including the gate to the round pen which was NOT safe, thankfully I noticed her right away) and I want to worm her but it makes no sense to worm Leeloo and not Juniper at the same time. This has become priority number one and I am hoping that with some clicker training (positive reinforcement training) I can get Juniper over her oral issues this weekend, or at least over them enough that I can worm them both by Monday.

A mentor of mine once told me “Sometimes you have to be a glacier and wear the mountain down one inch at a time.” Inch by inch I am wearing these mountains down.

Time With Friends is Time Well Spent

I was out of town this weekend visiting with some friends and it was a lovely break from everything. Nate very kindly did all the chores while I was gone; yes, I do realize how amazingly lucky I am to have such a supportive spouse. But that means I don’t have any updates or new things to discuss, other than a reminder that spending time with friends is really important and if you haven’t had a chance to spend some quality time with your friends you should. So instead of a post enjoy this video of baby Leeloo:

It is amazing how much better the video quality is from my phone now than it was from a dedicated video camera in 2009.